


She

by kitnkabootle



Category: The Hours (2002)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 07:38:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/884699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitnkabootle/pseuds/kitnkabootle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura Brown contemplates her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She

"She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on... far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day." - Excerpt from Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.

\--

She sits on a perch of cool porcelain, her eyes downcast. The flick of a page turning, echoes off the walls. She is acutely aware of every sound around her, stealing her silence and dragging her back into a reality far away from Virginia Woolf, from Clarissa.

A droplet of water releases from the tap and plunges into the abyss of the sink bowl. She watches, but no others seem to want to follow their predecessor. The pipes groan and shift in the walls and she can hear them stretching and settling.

Indistinguishable noises occur outside. A car backfires, a neighborhood child screams. Somewhere a front door opens and a wagon scratches along the sidewalk.

A toy log falls to the tile outside of the locked bathroom door. A little boy picks it up and loads it on the back of a miniature truck to deliver it to the cabin's construction site.

She feels incredibly alone.

She is aware that this is not correct. She is aware she has a husband that will return home in four hours and forty-seven minutes. He will shrug off his jacket and kiss her on the cheek and she will smile and pretend as though his presence makes her day and life complete.

There is a boy; a child, who peers at her with large knowing eyes that see right through the facade she has perfected. He absorbs her behaviors, her words and her expressions and categorizes each factual offering into a cross-referenced catalog of her deepest secrets. He terrifies her.

The small form inside her stomach flexes and shifts and she places her hand over the thinly clothed dome and massages the swollen mound. She is invaded. There is no escape from those around her and most definitely no escape from the tiny life within her.

They try to understand who she is. She knows that they try. Her only sanctuary is in the reality that they will never quite know. They will never be able to live inside her mind or her soul and know what it feels like to awake in the morning and open sad eyes on a sadder world.

She has always seen people. She watches everyone and notices everything. What she lacks in domesticity, she makes up for in an eye for emotion. She knows what each flutter of Kitty's lashes mean. She knows that when Kitty toys with the plastic handle of her handbag, that she is getting ready to leave.

Laura Brown knows a lot more then she lets on. She knows what it feels like to press wet cheeks into a pillow case and cover her mouth to quiet the sobs. She knows that running water can hide her tears. She knows to powder her nose before plastering on her most successful smile.

Most importantly, she knows what it's like to be in love, and at the end of the day it is the last thing she thinks before she closes her eyes and falls asleep.

These thoughts are hidden deep within the impenetrable fortress in her mind, and in this fact, she is saved.

\----  
The End.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I write the fics but I claim no ownership of the characters, places or plot points I have borrowed.
> 
> Originally Posted on LiveJournal - July 6th, 2009


End file.
